Category: Blockchain

The Smart Dubai Office has announced winners of its second annual Blockchain Challenge, who will now have the chance to partner with government stakeholders in Dubai to try and develop their ideas and technologies further. Selected from 200 applications submitted by startups in 44 countries and 85 cities, the purpose of the challenge was to find “the most promising blockchain solutions from the private sector that can assist in the implementation of the Dubai Blockchain Strategy,” which is to make Dubai the world’s first blockchain-powered city within the next two years.

Lately there seems to be no limit to the types of industries that are trying to apply blockchain-powered cryptocurrencies through tokenization. So what does hospitality’s latest effort portend for blockchain in the AEC space?

The potential “tokenization” of infrastructure assets via an “initial public token sale” that would allow communities (or perhaps developers) to raise money for infrastructure projects, with the potential for those tokens to increase in value over time (like many other cryptocurrencies), seems a step closer here in 2018 with real estate cryptocurrency developer BitRent holding an initial coin offering earlier this year.

Transparency and reducing transaction costs. Noble goals, for sure, and perhaps much easier to reach in the near future for both real estate and, perhaps, construction transactions through the power of blockchain. In this article, which we plan to update regularly as new governments and jurisdictions implement blockchain technology for real estate, we take a closer look with an eye towards how these systems might ultimately impact the civil engineering and construction industries.

After discussing what, exactly, blockchain and cryptocurrency technology looks like, we take a look at the top five ways they might transform the construction industry in 2018 and beyond: from BIM and smart contracts to the construction supply chain and scheduling, payment applications and liens, and insurance.